


Don’t Cry Because It’s Over. Smile Because It Happened

by China_Rose



Series: The Fountain Universe [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 11:16:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/China_Rose/pseuds/China_Rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking a bit of time is one thing but letting time slip away is another. Sadly Sam did the later and his life took an interesting  after but somewhat lonely turn. So this is what Sam did in the time between leaving Dean at the inn and turning up again some 10 months later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Cry Because It’s Over. Smile Because It Happened

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N 1:** This is part of the Once There Was A Fountain in the Square Universe and it begins after Part 12 in that story ends. It is set after Sam left Dean at the inn hoping that Daniel would save his brother. So this is Sam’s story; no Dean (well he's briefly at the end) here but it does mention their relationship.  
>  **A/N 2:** _Don’t Cry Because It’s Over. Smile Because It Happened_ is a quote from Dr Seuss  
>  **A/N 3:** _Italics_ are thoughts and may be used for emphasis.
> 
>  **Beta:** My heartfelt thanks to Thoks and Thok Jr, I cornered you both to finish this, so thanks for that big time for your efforts.
> 
>  **Comments and Reviews:** Always welcome.  
>  **Disclaimer:** No money involved here at all and obviously the Winchesters are not mine. I simply play with them occasionally. The use of images and snippets of dialogue from the show are not intended for commercial use and simply decorate this piece of fan fic.

  
Banner by China Rose

***************************************************

  
**Seven Days since Sam left Dean**  


_“I’m sorry, so sorry,” he repeated over and over as he shut down emotionally and backed out of the room._

_“Sam! Sam?” He heard Daniel yell. “Damn you, get back here now. Dean needs you. Sam…”_

When Sam left Dean he did so believing that he had failed Dean and that his brother was either dead or would soon die and that his own life was now utterly insignificant without Dean being there to share it with him. For Sam, the only good thing to come out of this disastrous situation was that at least the bond had saved Dean from an eternity in hell and so, clinging to that sliver of success amidst the turmoil, he fled the room and ran to the one place he felt safe, he went home…to the Impala.

Dean’s car had been their home since childhood. Crappy motels and diners may have been places they frequented but the Impala made them feel safe like no other place ever had and if home is where your heart is, Sam’s now lay in the comfort of old leather and the sound of a rumbling V8 engine. 

A week later he found himself sitting in a seedy motel south of yesterday, puzzled by where he was or how he got there. He vaguely recalled driving endlessly, before stopping to change his clothes and get gas, but most of the journey was a blur and the only conscious memory he had was when he signed the register at the motel as Joe Black. The next thing he knew he was awake; his mouth parched, eyes gritty and an empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. He looked out the window to see sunlight and a big blue barrier; obviously the only reason he had stopped here was because the ocean had barred from him driving any further south. A quick look at the hotel key told him he was now enjoying the benefits of a break at the _Happy Days Inn_ in downtown Key West, the southernmost tip of Florida and that was a very long way from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

 _Dean? Where was…_ but before he could work out where Dean had disappeared to, Sam was hit by a surge of emotion down their bond and in an instant he remembered what had happened, as wave after wave of terror, pain and despair assaulted him. The bond was pulsing with everything Dean was feeling at that moment and Sam couldn’t cope with it. 

He had read a while back that you could shut off thoughts and emotions in a bond but the bond he shared with Dean had been so new that he hadn’t bothered to even try; now with grief eroding his soul, his very sanity depended on him shutting down the connection between them. It was like turning off a leaking tap, eventually if you turned it hard enough the flow stopped. So after a bit of work eventually he felt nothing. 

At the time Sam never considered that closing off the bond meant he wouldn’t know whether Dean lived or died and he certainly didn’t think about the effect that it might have on Dean. It was simply a knee jerk reaction; an act of self preservation to stop the pain and it provided Sam with enough mental capacity to function without actually feeling anything that might drag him down. 

He hadn’t been alone in his head for a long while and the loneliness was overwhelming but feeling what Dean was feeling was worse. Sam knew he should return to Dean but facing his brother or Daniel, for that matter, was daunting. He knew he couldn’t explain to them why he left but he also knew he couldn’t return; well not for a while anyway. He just needed a few more days to clear his head and then he would call Dean.

The only problem was a few days turned to a few weeks and in the end Sam realized two things; one, he wasn’t ready to face Dean and two, feeling nothing and doing nothing were two very different things. So to fill in time Sam needed to do something that allowed him to act on instinct and live by his wits. The one thing he knew that would permit him to do both was hunting. It was physically demanding leaving him no time to think or do anything else. So he grabbed it like a life line in the same way he had done after the Mystery Spot incident.

Sam became an extraordinary hunter taking on any job that came to his notice, with a few notable exceptions. If Sam honestly thought about what he had done, he would have realized that he had subconsciously turned down jobs that took him to places that might hurt him emotionally. He never hunted in Indiana because the hell hound had attacked Dean there; he didn’t go to South Dakota in case he came across Bobby and had to explain what the hell had happened to him; he avoided Kansas because their Mom had died there and that’s where his shitty life began; he stayed away from California because his attempt to start a new life had ended so tragically when Jess died; Missouri was off the menu because that’s where their Dad had died; and of course Pennsylvania was out of the question because Dean was, or is, there. If Sam really thought about it he would have seen that his avoidance of these significant places was indicative of his mental state. From the moment he walked out on Dean, Sam had been avoiding everything that reminded him of his past and in particular of his brother.

So despite his strict choice of hunting locations Sam crisscrossed the country taking jobs with no down time in between. He started with a haunted house in Key West; wiped out a water wraith near Palm Harbor Florida, moved on up north into Georgia where a black dog was reported in the Chattahoochee National Forest…Sam hated supernatural dogs so this one was a labor of love. Anything that was evil and otherworldly was eliminated; poltergeists, women in white, demons, vampires and the list went on. His life was lonely and the journey endless. He ate alone, shared with no-one and spent each waking moment planning the next hunt. 

He steadily became less human as the weeks and months dragged on but he didn’t care, he had nothing else to do after all. However, while he seemingly had nothing to live for, he wasn’t prepared to die needlessly on some nameless hunt in the middle of nowhere. He had much to atone for, especially where Dean was concerned, and so he continued to hunt as he slowly paid off his debt of perceived sins. The only thing that kept him going was that when he did eventually die he hoped he had done enough in this life to be reunited with Dean in the next. While life without Dean was intolerable, an afterlife without him would be Sam’s equivalent of an eternity in hell. You see the thought of one day being with Dean again kept Sam going but knowing that, knowing how important Dean was to him, he still didn’t try to find out if Dean was alive. Even after all those months that was one trauma he wasn’t prepared to face…yet.

***************************************************

  
**Seven and Half Months since Sam left Dean**  


Well over half a year later Sam found himself not far from the Mystery Spot. He was doing a garden variety exorcism in the area and for reasons he still can’t explain, he found himself sitting in that same diner, the one he had spent one hundred Tuesdays in and had vowed he would never set foot in again. Yet there he sat, as Doris the waitress came to take his order just like she had a hundred times before.

Talk about déjà vu. He found himself half expecting Dean to walk in saying, “Tuesday! Pig n’a Poke.” Sam smiled, the Mystery Spot had been such a nightmare but if it came down to a hundred Tuesdays versus what he had now he’d take the hundred Tuesdays in a heartbeat because a hundred Tuesdays with Dean was better than a lifetime without him.

“You ready to order hon?” Doris asked.

“Yeah I’ll have a coffee and short stack,” the same thing he had ordered that first breakfast.

“Coming right up,” she replied with a smile.

It felt like home in a funny sort of way. A lot of his energy had been invested in this place and he realized he liked being back. It made Dean feel close and he mentally berated himself for letting so much time pass without trying to see Dean. He began to wonder what may have happened to his brother. Was Dean even alive? Sam hoped so, he really did.

Logically the easiest way to see if Dean was alright was to call him but if Dean was okay, Sam wasn’t sure if his brother would answer the phone when he saw who the call was from. So he decided to unblock the bond instead and see if he could feel anything along it. Feeling nothing of course could mean a number of things including that the bond had waned or worse, Dean had died. Still it was a neutral way of bridging the gap between them and it was a heck of lot more than anything else Sam had done since the day he walked out on Dean. 

Later that night as Sam lay in bed, he began the process of unlocking what he had so effectively locked months earlier. He prodded the bond but felt nothing. He spent hours at it and again the next day and the next and the next. After a week he was mentally exhausted and he had no idea what to think about Dean or the bond. He couldn’t feel Dean and yet somehow deep down he knew his brother was alive. In the end he decided that it would be best to simply go and see Dean in person, to face the music as they say.

First off though there were a few things that he needed to find out, so Sam did what he should have done months ago and after an obscenely short period of time he discovered that his brother was alive and well and working in Lancaster. Sadly though, he also realized he could have offset much of his guilt over not seeing Dean if he had only made those enquiries sooner. So he decided to head north to Pennsylvania in the morning and for the first time in a long while Sam slept well because he knew that finally he could explain everything to Dean and maybe, just maybe, they could reconnect as brothers again.

***************************************************

  
  
**Sam saw Dean Today**   


Sam watched Dean and Daniel from a distance, not wanting to reveal himself because he wasn’t sure how they would react. His departure had been unexpected and he imagined misunderstood. He was certain that there wouldn’t have been kind words spoken about him as the months dragged on. Of course it was his own fault if they felt that way, his actions and reaction to the situation being what they were, but at the time leaving seemed the only recourse left open to him. At that fateful moment Sam’s life had seemed over and his future with Dean gone. So Sam had walked away and now as he watched them hug and kiss, he walked away again.

 

***************************************************

  
**One Day since Sam saw Dean**  


“Another drink buddy?” asked the bartender.

Sam downed the dregs in his glass and pushed it towards the man. “Yeah why not!” 

Normally he refrained from over indulging; he never enjoyed that sense of losing control that comes with being blind drunk and he sure as hell hated the hangover the next day. More importantly in his line of work you never knew who or what might attack you when you least expect it, so he always preferred to keep his wits about him. Tonight though he made an exception because drinking helped fast track his misery and all things considered being drunk seemed a mighty fine idea. After all it’s not often you pluck up the courage to face the one you love only to discover they have found someone else because you didn’t have the balls to stick around long enough to prove your love. It was his fault that it had happened, so he was simply taking a minute or two to wallow in self pity. 

For Sam the memories of that night, eight months ago, were still raw. They were like open sores and he thought he could heal them by seeing Dean again but instead here he was staring into his drink and reliving the horror of that night: the hell hound; the long drive to Pennsylvania; Hans screaming that Dean was dead; Willy carrying Dean’s lifeless body and Daniel desperately trying to save Dean. Something snapped inside of Sam that night, he shut down and walked away. He thought the pain would go away if left but instead it gnawed at him day in and day out. He knew why it did, hell you didn’t have be Einstein to work that out. Sam realized that he must have had some sort of psychotic breakdown to have abandoned his brother like that but his decision to not contact Dean once the fog lifted was a deliberate choice and one he simply couldn’t pass off as being emotionally fragile and that is what was eating at him now.  
A year ago Sam had been on top of the world. He’d found a way to save Dean, save himself from a future of evil because of his demon blood and as a bonus he had discovered a way for them to be lovers as well as brothers. He couldn’t have been happier but in hindsight he realized he was a selfish prick and that selfishness was a contributing factor in what happened to Dean. The thing was, saving Dean was Sam’s priority but he realized soon enough that by saving Dean he could save himself. His love for Dean was timeless and he feared a future without his brother by his side for a myriad of reasons, the least of which was because he believed that Dean kept him honest; Dean had never let Sam indulge in potentially dangerous demonic habits like cultivating his powers. 

The twelve months between Sam’s death and resurrection and Dean’s run in with the hell hound had been monumental. When Sam had discovered that he was tainted with demon blood he dreaded the thought of becoming the next anti-Christ. Not knowing why he had been infected with the blood had him creating scenarios in his head about what sort of future he may have ahead of him and none of them were good, but Dean made everything seem alright. Somehow Dean made him believe that he could control the blood rather than let it control him. Sam felt he was in charge of his destiny simply because Dean was by his side. Therefore, the prospect of losing Dean because his brother had selflessly forfeited his own soul for Sam’s life meant Sam would lose the one person that he trusted to keep him this side of hell’s gates. So yeah keeping Dean out of the pit had definite side benefits for Sam. Was he selfish in wanting that? Maybe, but there was no denying how much he loved Dean and what’s more, even if there had been no demon blood to consider, Sam would still have bonded with Dean to ensure his brother survived. However, if Sam really thought about it, he hadn’t tried to use his powers since he left Dean, instead he had gone out on a one man mission to destroy anything that went bump in the night from tomcats to werewolves but when you share your thoughts with ‘Jack’ things don’t always appear as clearly as you think they do.

“Drink here!” Sam called to the bartender.

He had been so proud of his plan to save Dean and it had worked…sort of. Yes it had a flaw, a big one and that’s how Dean ended up shredded by the hell hound but the bond itself was solid; it was communication that failed them or rather him. Simple really, Sam didn’t tell the bad guys that he and Dean were bonded so they faced Lilith and the hell hound with nothing more than a secret, undetectable bond and a bucket full of hope. Sam had known for a month before that fateful night that he should have spread the word about the bond, he should have let the demons test it and then maybe Dean wouldn’t have had to face that last night. Instead Sam made excuses for why he shouldn’t tell anyone. He was afraid it was too new and if they ended up in a fight with a demon then he might lose Dean before his time was up and every moment with Dean was precious and Sam wasn’t about to forfeit a second of it. He didn’t tell Bobby about it either and Bobby may have been able to help them but Sam didn’t want to waste time arguing over what they had done and more to the point why they were sleeping together. The worst mistake, however, was that he didn’t tell Dean. He should have confided in him. Lord knows Dean sensed something was wrong and he questioned Sam often enough about whether everything was alright. In the end Dean had gone to his fate believing in Sam and the bond; totally unprepared for what happened. That’s why Sam abandoned him to Daniel’s care because Sam had betrayed Dean, his trust and their love. He just couldn’t stand there with Dean so gravelly injured and see that betrayal reflected in his brother’s eyes and so he left. 

Now after way too much to drink and in the spirit of introspection, Sam came to the conclusion that his treachery went even deeper than failing to tell Dean about the pitfalls of their plan. Not for the first time, Sam questioned how he could have justified to Dean that the only way to ensure he was saved from hell was through incest. Yes, he loved his brother and yes, he had wanted them to be together, in the biblical sense, and it had felt right at the time but now with the benefit of hindsight, guilt and a whole lot of whiskey, Sam had to admit that nothing good could ever come from doing something so immoral. Brotherly love was one thing but he had deliberately seduced his brother and that had to be right up there on the list of things one could go to hell for. Then again, despite having corrupted his brother, part of Sam still firmly believed what he had told Dean about them being two halves of the one soul and that they needed each other to be whole. The only problem was that you weren’t supposed to find your soul mate in your sibling. There were laws against that sort of thing. Anyway it was a moot point now; eight months ago he had a brother and a lover and now he had lost both.

“Yo? Bartender! Fill ‘er up,” he drawled as held out his empty glass and waited for a refill so he could continue his mental self flagellation.

Anyway it was all irrelevant now, soul mates or not there didn’t seem much opportunity for Sam to win Dean back, all things considered. Their bond was dead at least Sam thought it was and although he was no expert on bonds, he had read enough to know it needed nurturing and neither of them had done much of that in recent months. Without the care it so desperately needed, it would seem that the bond had simply faded away. It made Sam incredibly sad to think that he had worked so hard to get Dean to accept the bond and then Sam was the one who walked way and let it die. 

However he could live without the bond as long as he still had Dean in his life but he didn’t have Dean anymore. That was the worst thing, seeing Dean with Daniel and yet it made sense in a weird alcohol induced sort of way. The way Sam saw it, he had turned Dean gay and so his brother had sought comfort in the arms of an incredibly rich, successful, handsome, educated man, a man who had been there for him in his time of need. Of course Sam mentally belted himself for making it so easy for Daniel because he had literally dumped Dean in the man’s lap. 

_Way to go Sammy._

Sam swilled the drink in his glass and sighed deeply. He knew he had let Dean down. He had screwed with Dean’s head and his heart to say nothing of his ass (and it was a very nice ass indeed) and then he left him when his brother needed him the most. Now when he finally found the strength to face Dean and make amends for his sins he was too late and he had no-one to blame for that except himself. At least when Sam caught a glimpse of Dean he looked happy. He seemed in good health, maybe a little thinner than he used to be but he appeared…well normal considering what he had been through. So Sam had left once more but this time he knew Dean was safe and living a new life and Sam didn’t have the heart to destroy what Dean now had by fronting up and expecting that all would be forgiven simply because he said sorry.

Sam believed he had a lot to seek forgiveness for, but he also knew he wasn’t a bad guy either. He’d made mistakes sure, who didn’t, but he was _really_ sorry for them and more importantly his intentions had been good. _Things just turned out bad_ he admitted to himself as he took another swig of his drink. _Don’t they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Well I hope I get overtime ‘cause I’ve been working on that one for years._

Sam figured the root of all his problems was that he kept secrets. How often had Dean challenged Sam about keeping secrets? Sam remembered the argument all too well when he found out that Dean had withheld their Dad’s final words, the infamous ‘save him or kill him’ speech. There was no denying Sam had felt betrayed that his brother had hidden it from him. The thing was, how many secrets had Sam hidden from Dean because he felt it was better that his brother didn’t know? Let’s see, there was the fact that he only told Dean about his physic visions because he couldn’t hide them anymore; he discovered that their Mom knew the Yellow-Eyed demon but didn’t tell Dean because he didn’t have the heart to destroy his brother’s memories of her by telling him the truth; for a long time he never mentioned the demon blood in case Dean thought he was beyond salvation; he had seen Ruby far more than he let on and then last but not least, there was the bond. It could save Dean but no-one knew there was a bond so the hell hound would most likely still attack which it did and hey presto Dean ended up hurt…just a bit…well a lot actually…shredded. So yeah Sam had no right to feel Dean had done anything wrong because in the grand scheme of things Sam had very successfully hidden a number of things from his brother, things that impacted on Dean just as much as they did on him. So right now with a belly full of booze Sam reasoned that he had made a life’s work out of pretending that he had kept his secrets for the best intentions, but as he discovered that often led to catastrophic circumstances and equally devastating consequences. 

In some respects that’s why Sam returned to hunting after he left Dean. No denying hunting kept him occupied but it was mainly an excuse to avoid facing the truth; to escape the fact that he had made some pretty huge mistakes and he didn’t know how to begin fixing them. 

“Another one here,” Sam called to the bartender as he raised his empty glass.

“This seat taken,” a voice next to him asked.

Sam looked at the man who had just sat down, “Looks like it, since your ass is on it.”

The young man laughed. “You celebrating or grieving?”

“I fucked up,” Sam admitted with a sigh. 

“I think we’ve all done that.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed as he stared off into nowhere.

“You been together long?”

Sam shrugged. Obviously it didn’t take too much brain power to work out that Sam was drowning his sorrows over a lost love. “Forever,” he drawled.

“Bitch!” The man uttered in sympathy.

“Jerk,” Sam reflexively replied.

The man was taken aback by the response and started to stand, “Sorry man I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll leave you to it.”

Sam grabbed the stranger’s arm, “No. Stay…please,” he slurred. “Been a while…you know since I talked to anyone. I’m Sam,” he said as he held out his hand.

“Josh,” the man offered as he shook Sam’s hand firmly. “Look if you want to talk about…”

“No!” Sam shouted. “I mean it’s over, my fault. He’s got someone else. I have to live with it.”

“He?...Uhm hey you don’t have to drink to forget you know? There are other ways,” Josh suggested hesitantly.

Sam leered at the man. “Is that a pick up line?”

Josh smiled shyly, “Maybe.”

“Your place or mine?” 

“Mine is a block away but we could…”

“Yours will be fine,” Sam agreed as he slammed some money on the bar and stood up on what were now very shaky legs. “Whoa,” he muttered as his world tilted a little.

Josh grabbed him as he pitched forward, “You okay man?”

Sam giggled, “Yeah. I think I drank a bit too much.”

“Come on how about I get you a coffee and the rest we can work out later?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Sam agreed as he followed the man outside.

It had been a long while since Sam had slept with anyone but it felt good to be back in the saddle again right up to the part where he moaned, “Yeah Dean just like that…” It sort of killed the mood and left Sam feeling quite sober and very embarrassed.

He sat on the chair in the corner of the bedroom and stared at his soon to be ex-one night stand partner, “I’m sorry,” he whispered. _Must get that on my headstone. ‘I’m sorry’ is the story of my pathetic life._ “I should…go…”

It’s not that he expected to be dragged back to bed and forgiven for this latest transgression but some acknowledgment that he was even in the room would have at least allayed some of his fears.

“I’m not mad at you Sam,” Josh said eventually. “I’m disappointed in myself. I broke my own rule; promised myself a long time ago to never be the transition guy. I’m just no good at this fuck ‘em and leave ‘em sort of stuff but…”

“But you get lonely?”

Josh nodded in agreement

“Been there. Trust me I know what its like,” admitted Sam as he laced up his boots.

“This Dean; is he the one you broke up with?”

“Yeah.”

“You still love him?!” It was as much a question as a statement and the reality was Josh already knew the answer.

“He’s my…soul mate.”

“Then you’re crazy to let him go if he is that important to you.”

And there it was; the cold hard truth that Sam had walked away from the most important person in his life…twice. He must be crazy and crazier still if he didn’t try to make things right between him and Dean.

He walked over to the bed and dropped a kiss on Josh’s lips, “I think you’re right,” he murmured before he grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

***************************************************

  
**Three Months since Sam saw Dean**  


After his failed attempt to push the memory of Dean from his life, Sam set out on the road again. He had felt bad about what happened with Josh but he was grateful for the reality check. The whole situation had been just what Sam had needed in a weird sort of ‘knock some sense into his crazy head’ kind of way.

From the moment he left Josh’s place Sam became focused on getting himself in the right headspace to rebuild his life. He was determined to see Dean again but this time saying ‘sorry, forgive me’ was just the start and there would be no slinking away if Dean knocked him on his ass. He would take whatever was thrown his way and then he would get back up and try to get through to Dean again and again for as long as it took. 

He owed it to both of them to be persistent, especially since Sam had spent the past eight months tying himself in knots over what had happened to Dean and to continue the pretense that Dean was better off without him was pure crap. They were brothers, they had the same blood and they had a history together. You don’t ignore all of that just because it gets tough. If it turns bad Sam just had to be strong enough to see it through; as the saying goes, if you shoot for the moon and miss at least you’ll land amid the stars, so with that in mind Sam began the journey that would eventually land him back in Dean’s life and maybe one day in his heart.

So to start off with Sam spent a lot of time looking at what he had done during the last eight months and it wasn’t pretty. He hadn’t taken on board any of the lessons from his Mystery Spot ordeal; in fact he had emulated his original reactions perfectly. His hunts had become very black and white, yet traditionally Sam valued the shades of gray in his world. For Sam when he hunted with Dean, good and evil were not so easily separated and each situation needed individual assessment, yet he had spent the better part of the last year hunting things down on the basis that if they weren’t human then they were bad. Sam conceded that while he had honed his hunting skills he had also become hard and indifferent and that was not who he wanted to be. 

He was also quite stunned when he looked at where he had traveled during the past months. He had kept a record of all his hunts and as he looked through the list, for the first time he realized how selective his choices had been. The states he had failed to visit leapt from the pages as the omissions told him exactly what he had done; his subconscious desire to avoid his past had in fact dominated his life. So he planned to revisit those places that he had so carefully side-stepped since he left Dean. 

Dean was Sam’s future but he couldn’t embrace his future while he refused to accept his past. So this was all about putting the ghosts of the past to rest and there were plenty of them. Sam needed to say goodbye and to grieve for those people and places that had shaped who he was. As a starting point Sam went back to New Harmony, Indiana to see where it had all gone so horribly wrong. He needed to accept that Dean almost died there and part of that had been because of his mistake. Next he popped down to Missouri and stood at the spot where the truck had taken them out so long ago after his Dad had been possessed and Dean had been carved up by the Yellow-Eyed Demon. This place had marked the beginning of the end for their Dad and Sam was surprised to discover that he missed the life they had had prior to that night. There was so much wrong with their lives and yet even as a dysfunctional family there was nothing any of them wouldn’t have done for the other. It was a timely reminder that Sam had run from Dean instead of fighting for him eight months ago. 

Sam then journeyed to the place of his birth, Lawrence, Kansas and pulled up across the street from his childhood home. He tried to imagine what life might have been like if their Mom had survived. It was hard to envisage such a normal existence but he did come to a decision: it was high time he stopped bemoaning what he had lost in life and began rejoicing in what he had gained. He went to visit his Mom’s grave and spoke at length to her about his love for Dean. He told her he had slept with Dean and while he didn’t expect she would approve he tried to put into words what he felt in his heart. He told her what Dean meant to him and in the end he felt comforted by the fact that his Mom now knew that he loved his brother and that he would never let him down again.

After Kansas he traveled to California and sat by Jess’ grave. He had so much to share with her. He told her how much he had loved her; how sorry he was that she had died because of him and that he had felt responsible for her death. One of the main things he came to accept that day was that he had tried to escape his past by pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He had wanted to be Sam the student lawyer but the reality was he had always been and always would be, Sam Winchester, the hunter. His biggest regret was that if he had accepted who he was, instead of trying to escape it, then Jess might have been spared. However, it was only now as he aired his inner most thoughts that Sam realized he had been as much a victim as Jess in this demon blood saga. They had both been pawns in some supernatural plot and like all pawns they were both expendable. At last after all these years Sam finally accepted that he could have done nothing to stop what happened to Jess. For the first in years Sam stopped blaming himself for her death and it was a milestone moment. Now he could move on.

The one place he still circumvented was Bobby’s. It didn’t matter which way he looked at it, it just seemed wrong to face Bobby before he settled things with Dean. In the end, Sam made his choice based on sound reasoning not excuses. Bobby needed to hear about what they had done from both of them and until that could happen South Dakota was off the list, for a little while longer at least. 

So during those last three months Sam didn’t do any hunting he simply traversed the country revisiting his past. Eventually he stopped thinking of himself as a bad person and he began to see himself as someone who was only human and who had simply fucked up. He was now prepared to accept the consequences of his actions and more importantly, he had forgiven himself for his misdeeds. You see Sam learned the hardest truth of all and that was that he couldn’t expect anyone else to forgive him if he didn’t forgive himself first.

Eventually Sam had found the peace of mind that had eluded him for so long and now he made that final journey eastward. There in Pennsylvania, one week short of a year since he and Dean had sealed their bond, Sam stood near a construction site in Lancaster and waited to catch a glimpse of his brother. 

***************************************************

  
  
**One Year since their Bond was Sealed**   


He followed his brother everywhere for a week, dogging his every step taking care not to get too close. After all, this was a complicated situation and timing was everything. He didn’t want to make a mess of things now, especially in public. He turned the corner intent on observing Dean’s next move from a safe distance but out of nowhere he was grabbed and shoved hard against a wall.

“Have you been following me Sammy?” Dean asked as he glared at his long lost brother.

Sam took a deep breath, centered himself and thought _Shit!_

 

**The End**


End file.
